by Bruce Wagner
Below me, the untouchables were being pushed, whisked and twirled into the street by fresh packs of snappily dressed cops. I’d seen many soldiers in the short time since we’d arrived but now it seemed like whole dragoons were being summoned to Tobacco Road. Jostled from multiple directions past women in glittering saris, the disenfranchised surged to the sidewalks where they received further prods from handsome householders in gold-embroidered sherwanis, the goal being not just to herd them from the shop’s entrance but to whirl them out of existence. In the midst of my surveillance, I saw a figure improbably squeeze through the bottleneck at the door of Satsang Central. Kura! The bouncers missed him completely, as they were busy hassling with a clutch of urchins that delighted in a game whose main objective was to make a big show of rushing the door and then swiftly retreating just in time to elude the authorities, a maneuver which scored the most points if finessed without being kicked, grabbed, molested or otherwise apprehended. The most adroit of these mischief-makers found time to brazenly ape the look and mood of the policeman who had given chase or whatever fancy onlookers expressed disdain. To escape capture, the dirtball scalawags took impressive, flying leaps into a mosh pit of their peers that extended into the street, ruffling a few feathers and unraveling more than a few dhotis of the hydra-footed gorgon of perfumed devotees waiting peaceably on line.
I redirected my gaze. The sun no longer reflected on the glass. The inside of the shop, a-brim with those awaiting satsang, was totally visible. To my astonishment, Kura had already reached his goal: breathless and illumined, he stood before the Great Guru’s humble throne, beautifully surrendered. He brought the palms of his hands together in prayerful salutation, touched them to his forehead and crumpled into a lotus, neatly filling the spot that only seconds before barely contained the fidgety blob of an obese woman who, in a seizure of urgency, had decamped to answer nature’s karmically ill-timed call. Kura’s assured, brazen, somehow dignified arrival caused nary a stir. Befittingly, he now had the best seat in the house.
I will never forget that princely, boyish head swiveling, eyes trying to find my own. He squinted through the window, scanning at street level before remembering where he’d left me; his gaze lifted and caught me on my roost. A sunshine smile split open his face because he knew I’d bore affectionate witness to his mystic, acrobatic victory.
I still think now what I thought then—in spite of everything that was to happen, Kura had come home.
The next day, we ate a late lunch.
“Wasn’t that delicious? The chef’s from Morocco. Are you sure you had enough food? . . . I know it’s cold, Bruce, but I’d rather do this outside. They’ll bring heaters and it’ll get toasty right away, I promise—and some coffees and candies . . . Esme? Can you bring two cappuccinos? And a shitload of agave . . . some fruit and cheese? And those faboo little pastries? And more wine! Thank you, Es!”
After settling, I gave her a précis of where we left off. She excitedly dove in.
As it turned out, there would be no satsang, for . . .
. . . the Great Guru was dead.
Pretty dramatic, huh?
At the end of that first day, we learned he had shuffled off this earthly plane just a few weeks prior—around the same time that our earthly, private plane was being diverted to Algiers. Needless to say, word of his demise had never reached us. This was a century before the Internet, when news traveled at a more civilized pace . . . though I do believe that as renowned as he was, if the Great Guru died today it would still be likely that his death might slip through more than a handful of news cycles. His was the kind of passing that obits generally reserve for retired diplomats, African bishops and former child stars, i.e., ones that can be reported later than sooner. (Scratch former child stars—enquiring minds want to know!) That his life and teachings would eventually be widely written about and even popularized was never in doubt. Time has born that out.6
Adamant that at any moment the saint would take his rightful seat, Kura and I were oblivious to having stumbled upon what was essentially a vigil. Meanwhile, I watched from my maypole aerie; sitting before the Master’s empty chair, my lover’s childlike anticipation lent him a radioactive energy. Now you may think I’m setting the stage for a dais of eulogizers—after all, I’ve just told you the siddha was dead. I said “vigil” too but if it was, then what—whom—was everyone waiting for?
This is where the American comes in.
Kura’s belated words on the phone, some 30 years after we met—“I’ve found him”—are the basis of the story I’m telling you. Understood. But before I can properly introduce the American, I need to talk about the American’s teacher.
It was 1997—27 years since I last saw—left him—in Bombay. There I was in my zillion-dollar apartment, minding my own business, hangin’ with the gargoyles . . . remember? I get the call from Grandmaster Flash and suddenly I’m on my way to Delhi. Whoosh. While airborne in my cashmere cabin, rope-a-doped on Seroquel, I start to retrieve all this—data—everything I’m telling you now—I’m busy downloading because I haven’t thought about any of it in absolute ages. I mean not really, not deeply, maybe never. Strange or funny or bullshitty as that may sound. But it’s true. There I am on the jet, cramming for my exam—filling in the potholes of a life that sometimes, most of the time, didn’t feel like my own. Because in that chunk of years after I left him there in dear ol’ Mumbai—from 1970 to 1997—well, dysthymic depression, shitty chemicals and general lovelornness ruled the roost, and sealed off so many rooms—all the bric-a-brac and most of the furnishings were in the lost and found. So now I’m eight miles high, on my way to Delhi, freshening up my frontal lobe . . . bear with me, honey, because I want you to be as prepared as I can make you before we touch down—and we will, and soon, I promise! I promise we’re landing in Delhi soon! I just want you to be able to give Kura your full attention when you finally meet him. Because if I don’t talk about what I’m about to, it’d just be rude—like blowing off the first act of a play and just bringing you at intermission. [sings] “Eight miles high! When you touch down . . . you’ll find that—it’s stranger than known . . .” The Byrds! Roger McGuinn! O my God! Get my granny glasses!
All right, I herewith present: Queenie’s A Brief History of the Great Guru.
Are you with me, bubba?
By the late-’60s, the enlightened tobacconist had achieved a level of fame commensurate with Ramana Maharshi and was informally admitted into the League of Superheroes of Nondualism. His followers—or shall I say far-flung legions of the desperate, the curious and the dilettantish, not to mention the usual pastiche of pop stars, paupers and spiritual tourists—traveled at great expense to be in his presence. He was genuinely delighted to greet them (the rishi could be downright chatty) though to call him gregarious would be naïve. Still, the question remained: Why was he so relentless in his public teachings if his philosophy defined quote-unquote enlightenment as a state of being that was not only impossible to earn or solicit but one that could only “happen”? (Or not.) He was known to say that a fly was as likely to land on shit as it was on honey, meaning, the rara avis of satori found its way to the shoulders of vagrants and birdwatchers alike. It was his view (“My concept,” as he used to emphasize) that all the meditation, chanting and scripture studying in the world meant nothing, including a trek to Bombay to sit at the feet of the Master. Because all was predetermined.
At the end of the day, I suppose the Great Guru gave satsang simply because he enjoyed it. Such enjoyment was “already written,” and part of his nature. He was in full agreement with the Bhagavad Gita, which advised that action was the thing, not the fruit of one’s action. He was also fond of telling disciples he was busy “fishing.” “I am looking for that big fish,” he’d say, a waggish glint in his eye. “The one that swims faster and deeper than the rest.” This cryptic declaration never failed to make him giggle; if his dentures fell out, he laughed even
harder with what he called his “beggar’s mouth.” By this remark, one could wrongly infer he was trolling for a successor, but a proper saint has no interest in the tropes of lineage and continuity. Indeed, it might be said that a common thread among enlightened men was a certitude that none of their students had ever understood a word they uttered.
The loneliness of the long-distance bodhisattva . . .
In 1963, the Great Guru’s fishing pole received an enormous tug on the line.
While visiting a dentist in Miami, a blond, middle-aged gentleman picked up a Reader’s Digest with a wealthy woman’s account of her passage to India to meet a renowned “tobacconist saint.” He was intrigued. Gossip had it that for one week the American ruminated intensely on the article before tragedy intervened. Apparently, he was in the middle of an ugly divorce when his wife murdered their two young children. She attempted suicide but survived. During the trial, he left the States for good.
He was 48 years old when he landed in Bombay.
The Great Guru immediately noticed something different about the new arrival, a quality transcending the cold anarchies of grief. He knew he’d found a true adept, one whose self-realization was foretold—satori a priori!—just as he, the Great Guru, was predestined to be his guide. But it would take some work. The American’s behavior was erratic. He’d vanish for days, sometimes weeks without notice, before reappearing to claim his usual spot at the foot of the sadhu’s chair. Sometimes after those mysterious layovers, he was disheveled and disoriented. The Great Guru would order the Kitchen Cabinet—those roly-poly sister-aunties—to bathe and feed the Big Fish, spruce up the aquarium if you will. Other times he alighted from his travels impeccably dressed in linen suit and tie, as if fresh from Hong Kong, Johannesburg, Genève. After months of obliviously submitting to his artful guru’s grooming, the American at last steadied his course.
In the year it took for the arriviste to settle, the Great Guru’s focus on him never wavered. The proprietary denizens of the inner circle dug in their heels, girding for the long haul, cynically reassuring themselves that teacher’s pets came and went and the newbie would be no exception. Others laid down odds the American was “next in line” and began kowtowing early. Through it all, the old sage cackled with delight. The idea of cultivating a favorite tickled his beggar’s mouth pink, because it was no longer possible for him to have a personal relationship with anyone he encountered along the journey. For he had ceased being a person.
None of which meant he wasn’t delighted upon learning his chela was a racetrack bookie on the side, nor that the two couldn’t regularly share a glass of whiskey in the cool, early evenings. Nor did it mean he wasn’t grateful for the acumen the American lent to the fledgling publishing enterprise on Mogul Lane. It was the expat who had suggested satsang be taped (it would have been reel-to-reel back then) and transcribed for wider dissemination. The Great Guru was enchanted by the idea and impishly rebuked his minions for not having thought of it first. How he enjoyed stirring the pot!
Sorry to interrupt myself but I probably haven’t said enough to set the scene. I know I’m all over the place . . . maybe you can clean it up when you—I really do think I should get a little into how things worked. Not that it was all that mysterious, it’s just that people really have no idea about what goes on in the life of an ashram. Mogul Lane wasn’t really an ashram, strictly speaking . . . I promise this won’t take too long.
You see, the Great Guru had been a householder and family man. Two of his five children died; his wife and him had 12 grandchildren and a ton of great-grandkids between them. She was a piece of work. Her three sisters—the “aunties”—did all the cooking (hence, the “Kitchen Cabinet”) and had final say over any controversies that arose among the extended family, which occupied the two floors above the shop. All the tenants had been with “Baba” in excess of 40 years, loosely comprising what I’ve been calling the inner circle. Mrs. Great Guru kept a firm hand on the finances, which were robust on account of the steady stream of rupees donated each satsang day from attendees and local merchants; sent through the post, and so forth. A second ring of the inner circle looked after Baba’s daily needs—laundry, grooming, medicines, that sort of thing. Last but not least was the outer ring of enthusiasts living in rooms scattered across the city, the typical patchwork of loners, zealots and malcontents who wash up on any rishi’s shore. Each ring was needy in its own way, the wife and aunties being the scrappiest, most demanding of the lot. The Great Guru took pleasure in every skirmish he secretly set in motion—
Hold on a second!
It just occurred to me you might be wondering how the fuck I know so much about the Great Guru—a man I never met.
Okay: it’s an informed pastiche. Isn’t that what life is anyway? And I’m really not being cute. Everything I’m telling you or am about to tell you was taken from notes of my conversations with the American himself. Because remember, I spent four rock’em sock’em months on Mogul Lane before I fled; the Great Guru had been dead only a short while and the American talked about him non-stop. Talked to me. The rest I’m filling in from things Kura said when we hooked up in Delhi—we are getting to Delhi, Bruce, I swear, don’t you worry!—you know, things Kura told me as we headed to our momentous destination. Just trust. That everything I’m telling you—everything—has been drawn from my diaries and Kura’s memory, and the so-called qualia too—remember “qualia,” from school? (Maybe you weren’t a philosophy freak)—sifted through contemporary consciousness with what I perceive to be minor embellishments, which in my opinion is a totally valid approach to telling a hopefully seamless tale, particularly one in which the narrator brings so much of her own life experience to bear. A story, by the way, that I’m uniquely qualified to share, taking into consideration not only my intimate knowledge of a key player but the quantity and quality of a lifetime of “meetings with remarkable men” . . . Liken me, if you will, to a gifted translator who couldn’t possibly give you the literal text (no one could) but can approximate the rhythm and flavor, the moods of the original, and the true or truest sense of what the poetry evoked. The mother tongue. I’m the mother tongue motherfuckah.
In other words, have faith. I have no doubt you will. I can’t imagine you’ve got a different strategy, doing this as long as you have.
Scheherazade sings for her supper.
Bathroom break, please?
We resumed three hours later.
Well, all rightie then.
Those satsang tapes were a brilliant success. The American had an entrepreneurial streak that was, well, very American. And the Great Guru loved American energy! The rookie was on a roll: from the tapes sprung the collected transcripts that comprised the golden calf of Mogul Lane Press, The Book of Satsang. (Up till then, I think there’d only been a few pamphlets and chapbooks.) An entire library rose, elucidating what the sadhu preferred to call his “concepts.” The compilations benefited enormously from the American’s elegant edits and translations. His fine ear was matched by a finer eye; he designed the book covers and even the typeface that was to become an MLP trademark. The ingeniously simple logic of it—satsang-to-tape (or cassette or whatever it was back then)-to-book—vaulted the Great Guru onto the world stage. The American was very shrewd when cutting distribution deals for his teacher’s catalogue of essays, Advaitic homilies, and whatnot. His prescience was uncanny when it came to discerning who would work with him, and who would work against. He knew that if he was to succeed he had to imagine business dealings as a game, albeit one with serious consequences. He was sagacious enough to know that if ever he acted out of greed, the jig would be up.
Naturally, the books found their way to the States, where they piqued the interest of artists, singers and poets. Allen Ginsberg and Gary Snyder made a pilgrimage and stayed a few months, maybe in ’63 or ’64 . . . which actually might have been before the Book was published. (Peter Orlovsky was with them too.) Towar
d the end of my Bombay tour of duty, I remember being shown a photograph of the four of them—Ginsberg, Snyder, the American and the Great Guru—staring into the lens with “fierce grace.” By then I was already beginning to resent Mogul Lane and the dominion it held over Kura. Still, I looked at that group shot and felt a pang of envy that I hadn’t been there too . . . that funky old un-“be here now” feeling! And, oh: I can still see the framed page that hung on one of the grimier walls of the kitchen, torn from The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe: “There’s nothing that spoils the taste of good ordinary food so much as the memory of bad magic food.” No idea how it got there.
Now, back to that first day in Bombay.
1970. The Great Guru’s dead, but Kura and I don’t know it. Kura’s sitting on the floor in front of the Master’s chair, in excitation. Me? I’m halfway up a pole on my lookout, smugly surveying the scene, too green and/or discombobulated to ascribe any meaning to the fact that satsang was coming up on an hour-and-a-half late, a delay that would have been off the charts for a legendarily punctilious guru. And heedless of other signs too—the superabundance of flowers, the images of Baba glued to the paddles of hundreds of gyrating sticks held high in the air like bidders at an auction, the menagerie of musical instruments, their disparate songs in discordant competition amidst the general insanity. Nor did I take note of the ululating voices that rose and fell in an entangled, sometimes annoying ecstasy of mourning. Schooled in Western culture, it all seemed very rock star to me—weren’t gurus the rock stars of India? Besides, what for-real rock star was ever on time?
A sudden implosion of quiet engulfed the shop, its shock waves spreading to the street and beyond like a silent alarm. The aggressive stillness stopped the urchins in their tracks, which said a lot. I shiver just remembering. It was unearthly . . .
—then he appeared. Not from the upstairs rooms, as would have been the tradition of the pandit, but from a side door . . . stepping gingerly through the multitudes as they parted like the Red Sea—I never thought I’d use that horrible platitude but nothing else can describe it, Bruce! (And incidentally, making his way along the same path my intrepid Kura had blazed.) He was white, with blond, thinning hair and an aquiline nose. Tortoiseshell glasses. Early 50s? (He was actually 55.) I’m horrible with descriptions. Fairly bland though not unattractive. Very composed, very cool. Lithe. Had one of those lithe walks, a “supple gait,” like a jaguar. A slight smile. Simple white kurta. I remember thinking he must be some sort of staffer who “ran” satsang. Probably’d make a few announcements before introducing the Main Event. But when he turned to face everyone, he didn’t say a word. And oh! That otherworldly silence kept falling, the sound it made was deafening! Why was everyone so quiet? That sound . . . like flurries in a snow globe.
